Sleeping With My Car
by Draco the Lizard
Summary: After a run-in with a witch, Sam has to deal with the fall-out of the dying witch's curse. Dean Winchester/Chevrolet Impala


"You're not worried about that witch's curse?" Sam asked, as they walked back to the car.

"Not really. All she did was say I'd spend the rest of my life searching for my true love." He snorted at that. "Where's the curse?"

"Maybe she's cursed you to wander the Earth forever," Sam pondered. "Never able to stay in one place for more than a few days. That could be bad, Dean. It could get in the way of our hunting."

"Look, if that curse worked, and if it gets in the way of hunting, you can look for a counter-curse. Until then, I'm going to assume she was just trying to scare us."

Sam shrugged, and Dean walked faster as he saw the Impala in the parking lot. Sam figured Dean was probably in a hurry to get out of here, to get on with the next job.

The fact that Dean started running towards his car made Sam frown. Had Dean seen something? No, he would've said.

Sam refused to hurry just because his brother wanted to get back to his car for some reason, and once he saw what Dean was doing to the car, he wished he had walked even slower. "Dean," he said. "Dean, what are you doing?"

Because Dean was NOT licking the roof of his car. He was not.

"Hmm?" Dean looked up with a smile, still trailing his fingers over the roof. "What is it?"

"You were licking the roof of the Impala!"

"So?"

"You have NEVER licked the roof of the Impala!"

"So? Do you have a problem with that?"

Sam was baffled. "It's just sick, man. You don't lick your car."

"It is not sick, and you've done plenty of weird shit yourself," Dean told him, rather defensively. His hands were still stroking the car. "Don't mind him, baby," he whispered, and then dropped a kiss on the roof.

Sam stared at him. "It's the curse. The true love curse. Your true love is your CAR." He didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

He decided he had to do something, if only because he did not want to stand here and watch Dean lick the car and rub himself against it. "We're going to our room. Now," he said.

"You go," Dean replied. "I'll stay here. Guard the car, y'know."

"No, we are both going, and then we're going to do some research on how to break the curse," Sam told him.

"Why?" Dean asked. "You were just worried it would get in the way of hunting, and me loving my baby won't get in the way at all! She's always with us on a hunt!" He grinned at Sam, as if Sam should be as ecstatic about this as Dean was.

Sam sighed, and walked over to Dean to grab him by the arm and drag him to their motel room. It was a bit of a struggle, as Dean would rather have spent more time with the Impala, but eventually Sam did get Dean inside, if only because he promised to buy him dinner later.

Dean was standing by the window, looking at the Impala like some boy at a candy store while Sam was typing away on his laptop. There were plenty of stories about true love curses and how to get rid of them, but most of them involved either the cooperation of the witch - which would be difficult as she had cursed Dean with her dying breath - or the hairs from both the cursed person and the one they had fallen in love with, and Sam was fairly sure that cars didn't have hair. He wondered what the car equivalent was, and whether that would even work. "Come on, Dean, let's get dinner." He'd think better with a full stomach.

Dean grinned at him. "I'm driving."

***

Sam's appetite had completely gone by the time they found a diner. He was used to watching his brother's lame attempts at flirting, but this was way, way beyond that. This was like being in the same room as Dean when he was having sex with some girl. Or at least the foreplay part of it, since Dean was stroking the wheel and the dashboard, and he was muttering things that most certainly were not 'oh, you're such a good girl, yes you are' and 'god, I love it when you do that, baby', because then Sam would have to find someone to erase that memory for him, and he hated it when people messed with his memories.

He vaguely wondered if this was technically a threesome, seeing as he was in the car as well, and promptly decided that messing with his memories was a-okay, so long as it could remove that thought from his brain forever.

***

During dinner, Dean was constantly talking about his car, and how fantastic it was. When Sam made a noise of agreement, because it was a pretty cool car, Dean glared at him. "You can't have her, Sammy. She's mine. You got that?"

Sam most certainly understood that. "Yes, Dean, your car."

Dean nodded, satisfied. "Good. Now, have you found anything interesting we need to look into?"

"Not yet," Sam said.

"Good. Then I can get her to a garage and buy her some new parts," Dean told him, smiling dreamily. "She'll like that. I thought about flowers but she won't have any use for those, will she?"

"You could always buy some new air freshener," Sam replied, and then told himself firmly that no, dammit, he was not going to go along with this as if it were perfectly normal. It was his brother being infatuated with a car, and Sam was going to end the curse. Soon.

"Good thinking," Dean said, grinning. "I'll get on that right after dinner."

"No!" Sam exclaimed. "No, we should go straight back to the motel, so I can research, er, other interesting things."

"You don't need me for that, Sam. Look, I'll drop you off at the motel and come back later, okay?"

Sam realised he had no decent argument to stop Dean from going off with the Impala by himself. At least, not one that would work on this crazy Dean. "All right."

***

Two hours later, Sam still hadn't found anything on how to end true love curses involving inanimate objects. Fate clearly hated him.

Dean walked into the room, humming to himself, which meant that he was either really, really stressed, or really, really happy, and Sam didn't want to know what Dean had just done that could make him really, really happy. "Found anything?" Dean asked.

"Not really," Sam replied, clicking away all the windows on true love curses and cars.

"Can I look for stuff?"

Sam looked up at him. Dean grinned at him, but he was fiddling with the car keys. Why the hell was Dean nervous? Sam told himself that he didn't want to know, and nodded. "Good luck. I'm going to have a shower."

When he returned from his shower, Dean had left. Sam looked at the browser history to see if Dean had actually found something worth looking into, and saw that one of the websites Dean has visited was called ''. Some part of his brain that was clearly completely insane decided it was a good idea to check the website, just to see what it was about.

It was a guide for having sex with cars. For men.

Sam stared at the screen for about ten seconds before the rest of his brain kicked in to close the browser and shut down the laptop, just in case. He supposed it was time that he faced the facts: Dean was clearly not going to snap out of this by himself, and Sam had no idea what to do. He'd have to call someone who knew more about curses than he did, someone who knew about cars, someone who knew the both of them well enough to believe this ridiculous story.

Obviously, he'd have to call Bobby.

***

"So now Dean has left to do something I really don't want to know about, and I can't find anything on how to reverse love spells when it involves inanimate objects, and I was hoping you'd know something that could help us," Sam explained, fiddling with a pen.

Bobby remained silent for a very long time, and Sam began wondering if Bobby had died from having to hold back his laughter. "Right," he eventually said. "Right. That's unusual, but not unheard of. I've heard a story of a hunter who became very attached to his favourite rifle, if you know what I mean."

Sam breathed a sigh of relief. "What do I do? The only things I found involved getting the hairs of the humans involved, but that's obviously not going to work in this case."

"Thing is, to break a witch's curse, you need to have something that's the essence of the people involved," Bobby explained. "And hair is easy; you can get that without harming anyone, but it's not the only thing you can use."

"But what's the essence of a car?" Sam asked. "And how do I get it without Dean noticing? He won't really let me near the car anymore."

"It doesn't really matter," Bobby told him. "You'll need something that's essential to the car, at least. 'Course, you want to take a part that the car can do without for a while, and you have to make sure it's original, because both John and your brother have done plenty of work on that Impala, and you might not be able to break the curse with a part from another car."

Sam groaned. He was fairly sure Dean didn't have a detailed full service history of the Impala around, if only because Dean couldn't be bothered to keep one. He'd have to spend hours checking every part of the car to see which bit was original and which part wasn't, and then he'd have to make sure the car could work without it, or at least until they could get it replaced. And then there was the problem that even a Dean who wasn't under a curse would kill him for touching the Impala like that. This wasn't going to be easy.

***

After meticulous research on-line and an examination of the Impala, the latter made more difficult by the fact that Dean had taken to sleeping in his car, Sam had decided that the steering wheel was his best shot. Dean would definitely notice that was missing, and it would be rather difficult to remove from the car, but it was for Dean's own good, and hopefully Dean would understand and forgive Sam eventually.

***

The rest of the supplies for breaking the curse were a lot easier to find, even in the small town they were in.

When Sam arrived back at their motel, having hidden his purchases under his bulky clothes to make sure Dean wouldn't get suspicious, he found his brother once again draped over the Impala, stroking the hood of the car and probably muttering sweet nothings to it.

He really needed to hurry up with breaking the curse, before Dean decided to elope with his car to Vegas to try and get married. Good thing, then, that he had also bought the supplies he needed to make Dean sleep for a few hours. He'd need that time to get the steering wheel and complete the ritual, and if he had time left, he'd put the steering wheel back. Or he would use the time he had left to get out of town before Dean discovered what Sam had done to the steering wheel in the first place. Maybe the latter option was best; it was certainly the safer option. "Hey, Dean!"

"What?" Dean replied, looking up and still stroking the car. "What is it?"

"You wanna grab something to eat?" Sam asked. "Or drink?"

"Nah," Dean said, once again laying his head on the hood of the car. "Not hungry."

Sam stared at him with shock. If Dean wasn't even interested in food, this was worse than he thought. "I'll just go and get something anyway, okay?" He heard Dean say something in reply as he went into the motel. Dean had stopped caring about food. Dean was always interested in food; it was one of those things you could count on, like the sun setting in the west.

He told himself that this wasn't a sign of the curse becoming stronger and harder to break. He would save his brother from a lifetime of being in love with his car, even if it was the last thing he did.

***

Sam prodded Dean with his foot. It would've been easier if Dean had been willing to go inside their motel room to have his drugged Coke, but Dean had refused to leave his car's side, and now Dean was asleep on the motel's parking lot. Sam hoped no one would notice a thing. It was the middle of the night anyway, so not a lot of people would be around.

He grabbed the print-out he had made on how to remove a steering wheel. It didn't say how to put it back, but Sam thought it couldn't be too difficult. Just to be on the safe side, though, he had packed his belongings and checked that a bus would be coming through town in a few hours. By the time Dean woke up, either Sam would be long gone or Dean would never notice anything had happened to the steering wheel anyway. It was a win-win situation.

***

Removing the steering wheel took longer than Sam thought, and doing the ritual was harder when he had to hold the flashlight and cut off some of Dean's hair at the same time, but he managed it eventually. Dean was beginning to stir, though, so Sam hurried through the incantation and the lighting of candles and the rest of the ritual. Nothing happened when he finished, which felt like an anti-climax.

He glanced at his brother, who was definitely waking up. Sam couldn't just leave now, not without knowing whether or not the curse was broken, so he decided to wait for Dean's reaction. Perhaps breaking the curse would make Dean grateful enough not to kill Sam.

"Wha' happened?" Dean muttered, getting up from parking lot. "Sam?"

Sam grabbed his brother by the shoulders, turning him away from the Impala. "Quick, Dean, who do you love most in the world?"

Dean frowned at him. "What?"

"Who do you care about most in the world, Dean?" Sam asked, looking at Dean intently. He hadn't said 'my baby, obviously', so that was a good thing at least.

"Sammy, have you been drinking?" Dean laughed. "You're such a maudlin drunk, dude, we need to get you cheered up. Come on, we'll –" Dean had started to turn around as he was talking, and could now see the state of the Impala's interior.

Sam took a step back, slightly worried because Dean was just standing there, staring at the lack of steering wheel. He noticed that he was still holding it himself, so he dropped it as if that would make Dean less angry.

Dean turned at the sound, and then stared at the steering wheel on the parking lot, and then looked up at Sam, who was giving Dean his best innocent 'please don't kill me' grin. "Sam," he said, low and dangerous, "I'm giving you a ten second head start."

"Dean, I can explain," Sam said. "The witch that we defeated cursed you with her dying breath, and –"

"Five seconds, Sam."

Sam started to back away some more. "You were in love with your car, man, it was sick. I had to do something."

"And something involved vandalising my car?" Dean asked. "And you just lost your head start."

Sam ran off over the parking lot, Dean behind him. "I needed something that was the essence of the car!" he shouted. Maybe if he could get a few cars between him and Dean they could talk this over rationally. "Ask Bobby!"

"Did Bobby also tell you to wreck my car?" Dean shouted, sounding far too close for comfort.

Sam climbed over an old convertible, trying to think of what he could do next. "You can put it back, Dean, the car's not broken!" He jumped off the hood, looking back to see Dean on the other side of the car, panting and glaring at him. "You can fix her, and the curse is broken. Everything's fine, Dean."

"You," Dean said, pointing at Sam, "you do not get to drive that car for the next year. And you do not sit in that car unless you apologise to me and to her."

Sam nodded. "All right."

"Also, you're doing both our laundries for the next six months. And I get to pick the motels. And I get the best bed."

"Sure," Sam said, feeling better, because this was the Dean he was used to. A little too obsessed with his car, but at least not in love with it. "Can we go back now? We still need to fix the car."

Dean glared at him. "I still need to fix the car, because you're not touching her, Sam. Not for the next couple of miles."

Sam stared at him. "Wait, you're going to make me walk?"

Dean smirked. "Yep. Until we get to the next town, at least. Don't worry; I'll bring all your crap with me in the car. And don't even think about hitch-hiking." And with that, he walked away, back to the Impala.

Sam was fairly sure Dean was joking about making him walk. Dean would never do that, it was just to make Sam worry. In the morning, Dean would feel a lot less angry and he'd let Sam ride with him.

***

By the time Sam arrived in the next town, it was almost seven in the evening, and Dean was sitting on the hood of his Impala, waiting for him by the side of the road and drinking a beer. "What took you so long?" Dean asked, grinning.

Sam shuffled over to him, his feet sore from the long walk. "I hate you so much," he said.

"Feeling's mutual," Dean replied, patting the Impala's hood. "Sit down, I brought your lazy ass some dinner."

Sam gratefully accepted the cold dinner and the beer. "Thanks."

"No problem. But if you ever touch her like that again, I will kill you," Dean told him.

Sam smiled. "Sure, Dean."

"They'll never even find the body."

"Whatever you say."

"Or I'll just leave your body to be eaten by wild moose, or something."

"I don't think moose eat human corpses, Dean."

"Shut up, Sam."


End file.
